Appeals Administrator

Douglas County, CO•Castle Rock, CO

About The Position

The Douglas County Assessor's Office is hiring for an Appeals Administrator. This position is responsible for the oversight of appeal functions within the Assessor’s Office and the management of staff in the organization and processing of appeals.

Requirements

A Bachelor’s Degree in Business, Real Estate, Finance or related fields. Eight years of professional appraisal experience may substitute for this education requirement, with an emphasis in Ad Valorem / Mass Appraisal preferred, including supervisory duties, or an equivalent combination.
Must possess a valid Colorado Driver’s License within 30 days of hire, with complying insurance. Review of motor vehicle record is required at time of hire and periodically throughout employment.

Responsibilities

Prioritize, plan and coordinate appeal workload to comply with Assessor statutory deadlines and obligations.
Serve in an administrative role for Assessor-level appeals, working with other supervisors and their staff to ensure that appropriate training occurs, and the process is organized and conducted in accordance with state statute and Office policy. Administrative oversight includes appeal scheduling, and tracking.
Supervise clerical staff in their organization and coordination of appeals. Supervisory duties include hiring, performance management and employee development such as planning, coaching, and performance evaluations as well as disciplinary and termination decisions.
Provide direction to appraisal staff in developing successful tools and techniques to respond to assessment appeals at all levels including appraisal report development and expert testimony.
Communicate with property owners and their agents; assess needs, provide assistance, resolve problems, explain and/or discuss applicable laws and codes while providing quality customer service. Develop and maintain strong working relationships with regular customers to appeals process such as tax agents and subdivision developers. Serve as primary contact for settlement discussions with property owners and tax agents.
Collaborate with County Administration Department for County Board of Equalization (CBOE) appeals, ensuring that mutually beneficial communication occurs between the Assessor’s Office and that department. Work directly with CBOE administrator to resolve issues related to hearing scheduling, petitioner questions and conflicts, hearing officer decision analysis, hearing officer hiring analysis, and hearing officer training and preparation. Work closely with Assessor analyst staff, County IT staff and the County CBOE Administrator in projects related to innovation and improvement of CBOE systems.
Work in partnership with the County Attorney and Assistant County Attorneys on state-level appeals, binding arbitration, district court cases and abatement petitions. Employ negotiation skills with property owners and their agents to facilitate the successful and mutually beneficial outcome of appeals. Discuss guidelines, interpretations and appraisal techniques. May provide “Expert Testimony” in abatements, State Board of Assessment Appeals, arbitration, and court cases.
Provide training to appraisal staff regarding procedure changes, laws, regulations, appraisal techniques and methods, and the use of a variety of references to determine assessed value for appeals purposes. Utilize resources including, but not limited to, cost and construction manuals, market comparables, USPAP, and the State Division of Property Taxation manual (Assessor’s Reference Library).
Work with the Appraisal Solutions Administrator and Assessor management to develop and provide effective training sessions for Assessor staff on appeals-related software systems such as Realware Appeals, online appeals, CBOE, SharePoint for BAA and related future applications.
Work with the Assessor, Deputy Assessor, Senior Computer Systems Analyst and the IT Project Manager liaison to respond to technical breakdowns in current appeals software, appeals processes, data systems.
Assist with identification of future needs with respect to appeal processing. Assist the team in the evaluation, acquisition and implementation of future enterprise appeals software.
Work with the County Assessor and Deputy Assessor to develop strategies for improving customer service, increasing productivity, improving communication between teams and departments, creating innovations, improving business processes and performing other activities to advance the mission and objectives of the Assessor’s office and of Douglas County.
Work with the Assessor, Deputy Assessor, Senior Computer Systems Analyst and internal technical staff to develop appeal-related data quality control mechanisms and to generally improve and maintain the effectiveness of all appeal systems.
Perform other duties as assigned.